I haven't blogged about hubby much, so far, only cos I've kind of tip-toed around him for so long I'm not used to talking about him and his diagnosis'.
Very garbled family history, depends who you talk to and how much faith you put into the 'facts' you get told.
And the same people change their story over the years, so who friggin' knows?!
We eventually applied for his records through Freedom of Information.
We knew he'd been put into boys' homes and made a ward of the state but that was all.
With his Neurofibromatosis, ADHD, audio processing issues, dyslexia, Autism, etc, the bloke had memory issues, memories he couldn't figure out and, quite frankly, memories he'd very happily forget.
Waiting for the records took forever - far longer than (the then) advised 45 days (is it longer now?) with phone calls close to the end of the waiting period from people advising us to get in touch with a counsellor if we didn't have one already.
Riiiiiiiiiiiight.
We figured there were some pretty unsavoury things that happened but to read it in black and white, written by people a thousand light years earlier who did all that they could to change things, was a kick to the guts.
Hubby has happy, loving memories of a couple of his mothers girlfriends, one in particular who treated him like her own son, and who stayed in touch long after the relationship with his mother failed.
He has equally horrific memories of another of his mother's partners who belted him at any opportunity she got and called him an idiot, the same one who (we read in the records) was seen by a priest from the boys' home hitting him in the middle of the street as she thought he'd stolen the Easter egg he'd been given that morning by his dormitory supervisor. When challenged she mouthed off at the priest and claimed her rights to 'discipline' the child which was openly discussed in a meeting of teachers, carers, social workers, etc, at the home.
The records certainly filled in many gaps for us both; there was a lot of mentions of his early diagnosis', how these were explained to his family (but they never accepted them), how his mother believed this small child was refusing to learn just to spite her, how Every.Single bit of advice specialists gave the family was completely ignored, she put him in the boys' home where he was happy then removed him when it began to hurt her hip pocket, his home life got worse until his mother made him a ward of the state because, even after she locked him in his room for a couple of days, he wouldn't wish her girlfriend a happy birthday.
That's the same girlfriend who belted him several times a day.
Then the fact whole family claimed that there was no other family members willing to take him (they forgot to mention his biological grandfather, 3 different aunts and another uncle, the multitudes of great uncles and aunts, the multitudes of cousins who had no idea what was happening and who were horrified to hear of this in recent years) made my skin crawl.
Untangling the lies has been a brain-bending experience and chasing up confirmation on his diagnosis' has been time consuming and costly but it's given him a small sense of peace to know that he wasn't and has never been the one at fault.
Getting the label is just one step; accepting the diagnosis and acting on it is something else again.